


Tuesday

by Inbetween



Series: Days Of The Week [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action, BAMF Loki (Marvel), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, but like in a trickster way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23494330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inbetween/pseuds/Inbetween
Summary: It's the second time a building's fallen on Peter, and he's starting to think it might be a pattern.Loki gets into a fight with another supervillain. There are consequences.
Relationships: Loki & Peter Parker
Series: Days Of The Week [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682737
Comments: 53
Kudos: 389





	Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series, and the extent it to which it can be read as a standalone is limited.  
> That being said, if you're just here for the fight scene and the hurt/comfort, this is the fic for you! :D
> 
> If you haven't read the parts before this:  
> This fic follows the 2012 vibe where Loki was a supervillain terrorizing New York and the Avengers were a big happy family--Spiderman homecoming has happened, but nothing else.

Tuesday

_“Everybody likes conspiracy channels!”_ Peter remembers telling Ned once. (They’d run out of things to watch during a sleepover.)

Peter was starting to think he may have been an idiot.

He folds up his legs and tucks the pillow deeper under his chin. On his laptop, the kid with the tinfoil hat replays the clip of Tuesday’s attack.

 _“If you think Loki attacking this block was random and unprovoked, you’re an idiot.”_ The kid says flatly. _“Loki is a master of manipulation, and this 5-minute attack on Tuesday directly lead to the Avengers and government hostilities that overtook twitter last Thursday.”_

He straightens his hat. Below the video, the words ‘#1 ON TRENDING’ glare at Peter. _“And I’m going to tell you why.”_

 _‘The worst part about all of this,’_ Peter thinks. _‘Is that he makes sense.’_

The block Loki destroyed had snowballed into a slew of lawsuits against a major construction corporation: the cleanup had revealed building violations that could be linked back to monoxide poisonings for up to 20 years, which wasn’t even _getting_ into all the structural issues found.

From there, people had started questioning the corruption that had let the company get away with it, which had stirred the politicians invested with the corporation into a frenzy. An attempt was made to shift the structural issues over to Loki—an argument that quickly fell apart after a journalist asked Tony Stark what he thought.

 _“You do realize,”_ Tony had said. _“that Loki can’t change the fact those buildings and roads were made out of below code materials?”_

An idle question and answer had quickly turned the government's ire over to the Avengers, and through a series of convoluted reasonings, managed to shift enough blame onto the superheroes to drag them to _court._

The Avengers got pissed, the people got pissed, and public relations went from low to hostile—all within _days_ of Loki’s attack.

 _“Loki is dangerous.”_ The kid on his laptop says. _“but what makes him a_ supervillain _is that he’s unpredictable. And he’s_ smart. _A lot of us have dropped our guard because his body count declined sharply after the battle of New York—when compared with other supervillains, he fades to the background.”_

Peter grimaces at that. It hit a little too close to home.

_“But Loki is dangerous in a different way: he turns us against each other. What’s happening right now can’t be solved with a handy dandy right hook from Captain America. All we can do is make sure our government hears us: take to twitter, and show them we know they’re full of shit dragging the Avengers into this! As for Loki, we need to start treating him like the threat he is!”_

The kid straightens his tinfoil hat again. _“By the way, Loki is definitely telepathic or something, so if you guys want your own tinfoil hats, head on to the link below—"_

Peter clicks off the video and drags a hand down his face.

It was late, and he had math homework, but—Peter thinks of Loki’s grin, and the word _‘Spiderling’_ echoes through his head. May had ripped into him about consorting with supervillains, and combined with the video…

Peter scoots his chair away from his desk and begins pulling on his suit.

He needed to think.

Peter stares down into the streets below him. He’s sitting on the edge of a skyscraper, legs dangling into free space. This high, the veins of his city run gold. He calls Ned.

“Ned,” Peter says. “do you think me naming a cat Froggy could eventually end the Avengers?”

“Dude,” Ned says. “what?”

It takes Peter a while to explain everything that had happened. By the end, Ned is furious. Not because he’d buddied up to a supervillain, but because it’d taken him so long to tell him.

“Why didn’t you tell me, man? I’m your guy in the chair!”

“I know Ned, I’m sorry. It just…slipped my mind, to be honest. It didn’t seem like a big deal. But then May ripped into me about how dangerous it was, and then I started overthinking it, and now—”

Ned sighs. “You think Loki is manipulating you?”

“…Yeah.”

“Peter,” Ned begins, voice taking on an all-knowing tone. Peter hears his chair squeak as he sits up. Despite himself, Peter feels a smile twitch his lips. He can picture Ned, straight-backed as he folds his hands in front of him, posing for an invisible audience. “You can stop overthinking what happened in the grocery. There’s no reason for Loki to suspect your civilian identity, so he’d have no reason to try and trick you. The cat thing though…” Ned is silent for a long moment.

Peter picks at his suit. “He didn’t know who I was?” He offers.

Ned snorts. “You’re spiderman, Petes. Everyone knows who you are! He was probably just faking it.”

Peter isn’t sure about that one, but he’s the one that called Ned, so he stays quiet.

“Did your spidey sense go off?”

“…Only at the beginning.” Peter admits. “But my spidey sense wouldn’t warn me if I’m being manipulated.”

“No,” Ned agrees patiently. “But this way you know the cat was real, and Loki didn’t enchant you or something.”

Peter hadn’t thought about enchantments.

“Was he being nice?”

“What?”

“Loki, was he trying to get you to like him?”

“Uh, no. He called my suit ugly.”

There’s a disbelieving silence on the other end of the phone before Ned exhales loudly and sits back in his chair. “I thought Loki had _style._ I’ve been living a lie. But more importantly—if Loki didn’t enchant you, and wasn’t trying to get on your good side, then I don’t think he’s playing you, man.”

“What if…what if getting me to name his cat Froggy was a way to get me attached to her so he can use Froggy to distract me fatally in battle?”

“Peter,” Ned says flatly. “If you’re using words like fatally, you’re probably overthinking it.”

“This is _Loki_ Ned. What if May’s right and I’m underestimating him?”

“He may be Loki, but you’re _spiderman._ Whatever happens, you can handle it—but if you’re scared of Loki for no reason, he’s already got the drop on you.”

“…That was really wise, Ned.”

“Thanks,” Ned says. “I think it’s the third can of RedBull.” Then, before Peter can even _begin_ on how much of a bad decision drinking three cans of RedBull was, Ned continues: “Okay, so now that that’s out of the way…Is he as tall as he looks on TV? What about the horns? Did you see the horns? What was it like seeing _magic_ in _person,_ how does that work—Peter, you did ask him how it works, right? What about his lady from, how does she look? I can’t believe you didn’t take a picture! Wait, what are his pronouns? Does his eyes glow? It looks like they glow on TV—”

Peter is smiling so wide it hurts. Ned keeps on rambling into the phone and the wind tugs at Peter’s legs, urging him off the edge. Peter lets it. He tips himself off the skyscraper and swings to the next one, allowing the wind to drag him along at his back. All the while, Ned chatters on through his mask, and Peter forgets why he was ever worried.

It doesn’t last long.

Barely lasts till the end of his patrol the next day.

It's on Tuesday evening, the day after the cat and the hotdogs, that Peter wonders if he had started something cataclysmic by running into Loki at the grocery store.

He swallows thickly and moves carefully along the roof edge. “Karen,” Peter says quietly. “Can you text May and tell her I’ll be late for dinner?”

Below him, Loki has his hands tucked into his pockets. He’s talking conversationally with Doctor Doom, an easy smile staining his lips. Even 3 stories above them, Peter can feel the dry crackling in the air as Loki’s magic unwinds.

The civilians hadn’t caught on to the danger yet. A few flick glances at Doctor Doom. He’s standing there, unmoving and silent in front of a pharmacy, and the sight is so foreign most of them write him off as a tasteless cosplayer. Peter’s spidey sense prickles beneath his skin.

“Peter,” Karen says smoothly. “I’m going to call the Avengers.”

Part of Peter wants to protest. The Avengers had enough on their plate. But its Doctor Doom and…he looks at Loki. _‘And it’s a Tuesday.’_ “Yeah,” Peter says. “You do that.”

Peter drops down from the building and lands in a neat crouch beside them. Doom twitches his head slightly toward him. Loki doesn’t look at him at all.

“Hey guys,” Peter says. His voice comes out steadier than he thought it would. His spidey sense is pulsing beneath his skin now, settling into a low rhythm of _‘danger, danger, danger.’_ “Do you think we could move this conversation somewhere else? There’s this super sweet back alley 2 blocks down that would totally fit your aesthetic.”

“The answer is no.” Loki says to Doom, a low, purring drawl. Peter hears the edge hidden beneath it.

“Are you quite certain?” Doom asks. The noise is metallic, echoing through the metal mask.

Loki glints his teeth at him.

“A shame.” Doom sighs, and Peter’s spidey sense surges.

It happens quickly: Doom snaps out a hand, Loki widens his stance, and Peter wrenches Loki out of the way before he can think better of it. The energy blast Doom fired tears a streetlight in half and sends it to the ground with a metallic screech and the bubbling of molten metal.

Loki tears his arm out of Peter’s grip, teeth bared in an ugly snarl. He opens his mouth, eyes burning through Peter and—

“Friend of yours?” Doom asks dryly.

Loki’s expression reassembles into boredom with professional ease. Peter almost gets whiplash watching. “I’m not in the habit of befriending insects, Doom.” He flicks his eyes up and down Doom’s frame with a sneer. “I thought you would have gotten the hint by now.”

Doom stiffens, enraged.

“For the record,” Peter says in the calm before the storm. “I’m an arachnid.”

“No,” Loki says. “You’re in the way.”

Peter jerks to the side. He’s too late. Loki’s magic clips his shoulder and hurls him through the window of the pharmacy in an explosion of green energy. Peter twists midair, tries to land on his feet, and the remnants of the shockwave snap into his chin and knocks him to the floor.

Peter groans, rolling over in the bed of glass. He shakes his head to clear the buzzing. “You’re welcome.” He says sourly.

In the street, Loki gestures sharply and the broken streetlight hurtles toward Doom.

Doom side-steps it. It’s passing flares his cloak, and he raises his arm in the same motion.

Peter’s web loops around his arm and wrenches it to the side—the energy beam carves the ground as it goes and with an inconvenienced sigh Doom aims his other hand at Peter.

The web retracts and Peter shoots toward Doom. He turns midair, sailing over the webbed arm and knee aimed for his temple.

Doom ducks, forced to drop his free arm, and then Loki’s beside him and Peter releases the web so he can swing away.

Loki grabs Doom’s arm and jerks him closer, laying a hand on the metal forehead. His expression falls in surprise.

“Oh please,” Doom says, lunging for Loki’s throat. The god ducks, and with the grip he still has on Doom’s arm, twists it up behind him. “You didn’t really think you could beat me in a battle of wills, did you?”

Loki’s twists his arm harder, the metal screeching, and Doom goes down to a knee. “You don’t want me to answer that.”

Peter frowns, perched on a mailbox a few feet away. Doom wasn’t resisting, wasn’t even firing his laser, and—“Loki!” Peter cries, hurling himself to the ground. The god is thrown clear across the street in a clap of thunder.

Peter’s ears ring. He can taste metal in the back of his throat, and the HUD of his suit flickers briefly. He’d grounded himself in time, but his teeth still buzz.

Doom rolls his shoulders, lightning spitting around his hands in a halo of white light. At the end of the street, Loki sits up on his elbows, looking vaguely inconvenienced. The car he had totaled wails. “You do realize,” Loki says and gets to his feet. “that I spent over a thousand years beside _Thor,_ right?”

“And yet—” Doom begins, and Loki waves him off irritably.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Loki snaps, glaring at Peter.

Peter flushes. “I was worried!”

“Are you done?” Doom asks icily. The Loki at the end of the street fizzles out and Loki presses a hand to Doom’s chest with a vicious grin.

“Not quite.” He says and Doom braces himself—only to be thrown _sideways_ instead of backward, and Peter grabs the broken streetlight and flings it into a collision course with Doom’s throat.

The lightning around Doom’s hands clings to the rod, sending a charged bolt to throat punch him mid-air. Completely ungrounded, the lightning arcs through him.

There’s a moment when Doom’s head snaps forward; a quiet gasp rasping through the metal; before Loki’s magic changes direction and Doom is thrown downward. He shatters the street.

Loki whistles lowly and saunters forward. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Were you aiming for me?” Peter realizes and Loki waves him off.

“Details.”

“It appears,” Doom says and sits up. He dusts a bit of street off his shoulder. “that I will have to force your hand.”

“I need to evacuate the civilians,” Peter warns Loki. “Can you handle him till then?”

Loki shoots him an enraged look. “We are _not_ working together on this!”

Doom snaps up the electrified pole and clips Loki’s knee with its end—Loki staggers, and it’s enough for Doom to lunge to his feet and swing the make-shift staff for the god’s head.

Loki catches it on a forearm and knocks it wide, lunging for Doom with a twisted snarl. Magic burns the air around his hand.

Doom throws up a shield, one that warps the air in thrums of pale green. Loki’s hand snaps to a stop, bending sharply at the heel, and his magic dissolves. His eyes widen.

“I overestimated you.” Doom says disappointedly. His shield inverses and explodes outward. Loki hurtles across the street. He manages to grab a streetlight midair, swinging himself out of the shockwave—it fractures the building behind him.

Loki lands, and the knives he’d hurled cracks into Doom’s shoulder and sends him back a step. Another sinks into his stomach, and the third only misses his neck because he’d stumbled.

“That,” Loki says icily. “is my line.” He unfurls to his feet and his armor folds over him in a ripple of green light. His helm is missing, but the gold plate gleams.

Doom rips the blade from his stomach, turning it to catch the setting sun. “Asgardian metal.” He says. “I’ll be keeping this.”

Loki’s lip curls.

Peter had never been in a magic firefight before, but as he rips a woman out of a levitating car, he finds he doesn’t care for it.

“Dude!” Peter yells at Loki, swinging the woman to safety. The car hits Doom in the face. “Watch it!”

“I,” Loki growls at him and ignites the car. “am the _bad guy!”_

Doom swipes the flames away with another shield, and when Loki easily weaves around an energy blast, he melts the ground beneath him instead. Loki summons a spear in a deft twist of his wrist. They dance down the street in a flurry of strikes.

Peter lands on a windowsill, breathing hard, and tries to take inventory.

Doom was outmatched in hand to hand combat—it was why he was keeping Loki at a distance with the staff, though the god was making every attempt to get under his guard and pull out a knife. Holding the staff meant Doom had lost the ability to shoot energy beams, but his shield flares to life every time Loki attempts to nail him with a burst of green fire.

Peter had managed to clear the general area of civilians, but Loki’s onslaught was pushing the fight back toward more populated areas.

“Karen,” Peter begins swinging toward them. “What’s the ETA on that Avengers call?”

“You caught Tony in the middle of his court appearance. Depending on how quickly he loses his patience at Fury trying to keep him there, you have anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes.”

Doom traps Loki’s spear to the ground and electricity arcs toward him. The god’s form dissipates, revealing the real Loki to be barely a foot off from his illusion’s place. It's enough for the attack to miss. Loki headbutts Doom so hard Peter _hears_ the metal crunch, all the way above them.

“What’s the matter?” Loki drawls, as multiple images of him flicker to life. “Seeing double?”

Peter lands on the roof edge and darts his gaze over the area. There’s a building, mid-construction, at the end of the street.

“Karen,” Peter says, leaning forward. “Say I wanted to bring that building down and block off the street—”

“Negative,” Karen says. “The building beside it is structurally unsound.”

“Damnit,” Peter hisses. Then, he aims a web-shooter at Loki.

The web hits him in the shoulder, effectively giving away his location—Loki stares at it in surprise, before Peter shoots his other web at the building across the way. He pulls himself toward it, tearing Loki off the ground, and uses the momentum to sling him back down the street where the fight had started.

“Sorry!” Peter yells after him, then flips away from a series of energy blasts as Doom walks back toward the god, hand pointed at Peter as he goes.

“You are royalty, are you not?” Doom calls. Loki gets to his feet. Peter hadn’t seen Doom land a hit, but there’s smoke curling off Loki’s left arm. Blood drips quietly. “You make a fool of yourself, fighting like a common beast.” Loki pries the armor guarding his forearm off, and more smoke escapes from beneath it—the metal is warped, and the smell of burnt flesh sticks in the back of Peter’s throat. Doom comes to a stop, feet away from the god. “Cease your resistance. I would prefer you alive when I study your magic.”

The ruined armor disappears with a turn of Loki’s wrist. “Does that,” He flexes his hand experimentally, and the blood drips faster. “usually work for you?”

Doom shakes his head. “This is the second time I’ve offered you mercy.”

“Mercy is given from a place of power.” Loki flexes his hand again. It doesn’t bleed this time. “and you are _anything_ but powerful.” His grin splits his face.

“Karen.” Peter says quietly.

“ETA is 3 minutes.” Karen says, and the world explodes.

Peter’s eyes are closed. The back of his eyelids is white. “Karen, block out my lenses.” She does and the white falls away.

Peter had once compared Loki’s magic to a flashbang. That had been when he _wasn’t_ trying to create light.

“Parlor tricks!” Doom cries, enraged and pain lacing his words. There’s the sound of him firing his energy blast—it hits something that reacts with a shuddering groan. Peter frowns, tilting his head toward it. A building? But the noise—

“You hardly warrant much more.” Loki sneers. Doom fires again.

“Stop shooting!” Peter cries as the groaning increases. He’d placed the sound: a building was collapsing. Peter aims his web shooter blindly, unsure how he could stop the fall but willing to try.

“Why ask when you can make him?” Loki says darkly, and Karen unblocks his lenses—his vision is still smarting, but he sees it when Loki folds a deep blue hand around Doom’s wrist. Still hot from its recent firing, the metal cracks under both the pressure and the temperature change. Steam rises from where Loki touched him.

 _‘Is that frost?’_ Peter thinks, staring. It _was_ frost, crawling up Doom with frightening quickness. Doom lurches blindly, tries to fire with his other wrist. The cold cracks that one too, and Loki bares his teeth in the man’s face.

Peter’s mouth goes dry. _‘He’s going to kill him.’_

It happens quickly after that.

Peter makes his decision. He aims his web-shooter at Loki instead.

Doom throws up a shield: useless. Loki was too close.

“You alright, kid?” Tony asks through Karen, and his shot whistles as it slams into Doom’s shield—it rebounds, hitting Loki instead and the god is knocked off his feet, still holding onto Doom. Doom lands on top of him and Loki kicks him off and over his head with a snarl.

Iron-man hovers over the battlefield, surveying the damage with a regal cock to his head. “What,” he says and aims both hands at either villain. “ _is it_ with you and destroying blocks?”

Both Loki and Doom had been knocked in front of the collapsing building. Loki rolls away from the next shot but does so on his bad arm. Peter sees him go rigid with pain, one knee on the ground and momentarily stunned.

Doom deflects the shot aimed at him, using his broken gauntlet to fire an energy blast that propels him at Tony.

Tony spins out of the way, grabs Doom by the arm, and tries to throw him aside—Doom grabs the back of his helmet and headbutts him with a halo of electricity. Peter loses track of the fight after that.

He wasn’t trying particularly hard to follow it anyways.

His heart is in his throat. He isn’t sure when he fired his webs, but he’s shooting toward Loki, arm outstretched. Loki looks up at him, surprised. It’s the most genuine expression Peter had seen from him.

In hindsight, he hadn’t thought it through. The building was already falling when he moved. There was no way for Loki to clear it, with or without his help.

Which is why he doesn’t know how to answer when Loki glares at him, eyes glowing in the darkness, and grits out: “What were you _thinking?”_

There’s dust coating the back of Peter’s throat. The only light is from Loki, as a ball of soft white tumbles in place above his hand. Peter swallows. His throat feels like its full of glass. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.” He hears his voice like it’s underwater. It sounds awfully small.

Loki’s expression stills, carefully neutral.

Peter’s fingers twitch, splayed across a slab of stone. His forearm bears the rest of the weight, pressed flush against the debris. There’s a different piece stabbing into his shoulder, forcing its weight on his back and threatening to collapse his arm. He sinks slowly to a knee. His other arm scrabbles for purchase above his head, searching for a way to take some of the weight.

“Peter.” Karen says. “you need to calm down.” He can’t hear her over the pounding of his heart in his ears. He swallows again, blinking rapidly.

“You’re a fool,” Loki says finally. “This wouldn’t have scratched me.”

 _‘That’s a lie,’_ Peter thinks. It’s not what comes out.

“I can’t breathe.” He rasps quietly. The building moans and shifts. Concrete showers down on them.

“What?” Loki says.

“I can’t—” His next breath hitches, catching in his chest, and it makes a strange whistling noise trying to leave him. He gasps, and his mask sticks to his mouth. His free hand whips to his face, scratching desperately for the seam of his mask.

Loki grabs his hand, stilling it, and lowers it carefully. Peter is rigid. “Calm down.” Loki snaps, authoritative. It jerks Peter to attention, makes him realize his eyes had been unfocused.

“Here.” Loki drops the ball of light, allowing it to spin lightly in the air, and rolls up the bottom of Peter’s mask for him.

He’s using his injured hand, and the smell of burnt flesh and blood crawls into Peter’s mouth. He gags and his chest heaves, lungs tightening around every breath. They shake out of him.

“Peter!” Karen cries, and it sounds a lot like Tony.

“Spiderling,” Loki says, voice losing its edge. “Slow down.”

“What?” Peter breathes, voice hitching.

Loki looks at him, eyes steady, and places a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Breathe. Slower.” Peter can’t think of any reason not to, and it’s a simple enough command. His eyes squeeze shut, then snap open when the darkness reminds him too much of the last time he’d been buried.

 _‘Breathe slower? Breathe slower.’_ Peter thinks dazedly. _‘Loki’s breathing pretty slow.’_ The god’s breaths are soft, but they echo in the small space. Peter tries to match them. It’s harder than it should be. Slowing down makes his heart speed up, makes his throat close, and every time he gets close to the rhythm he gags for air. His eyes tear up in frustration. The whine claws itself out of his throat.

“It’s okay,” Loki says, sitting back and watching him peacefully. “You have time.”

It’s another lie.

Loki is a good liar.

Peter slows down.

He stares at the ground for a long moment after that, listening to his breaths bounce around in his head. He swallows.

Blood drips to the ground.

“What?” Peter whispers, voice hoarse. He looks up. The blood is black in the lighting, fading Loki’s skin to a porcelain glow. He delicately wipes away the nosebleed with the side of his thumb.

“Better?” Loki asks.

“What?” Peter repeats, louder, and finally notices the pale green tint. The sphere of light is gone. Peter looks up.

The debris is surrounded with a pale green glow, the same as when Loki had levitated the frog. “You can let go.” Loki says.

“No,” Peter tries, then clears his throat and says it again. “No. You’re...you’re injured.” He tries to take the weight again, but the pressure doesn’t return to him. He’s shaking.

“And you just had a panic attack.” Loki waves his hand dismissively. “Do you really want to start this?”

Peter shakes his head. “Just, just let me do it—why do you care?” His voice is picking up now, too loud. It hurts his ears.

“I don’t.” Loki says coolly, eyes hardening. “I’m just not in the habit of picking up debts.”

“Okay, no debt then.” Peter hears the desperation edging into his voice: the blood is running down Loki’s nose again. He cleans it away, the sharpness of the motion belying his frustration. “But you’re injured, and I’m not, and this is my fault—”

“If you could bring down buildings at will,” Loki says. “then I expect you’d be a far more formidable foe than you are.”

“—I’m the one that chose to get under the falling building, _you didn’t._ And it doesn’t look like you can keep this up for long, so I’d rather be _ready for it_ when it falls.”

Loki gives him a bored look, reclining like he wasn’t under several tons of thinly supported debris. “Are you done?”

“What would Froggy think!” Peter bursts, frustration making his eyes tear.

Before Loki can even _begin_ trying to answer that, the building moans and a dull roar sounds. Loki looks up in surprise, and the slab he was levitating jerks upward as the weight on it lessens.

“Well,” He huffs. “It appears we won’t have to find out. Your cavalry has arrived.”

The slabs rise a little more, and the roar sounds again, closer. Peter recognizes it as the hulk this time. Loki flicks his gaze up, almost nervous. They’re quiet for a while. Peter rolls down his mask with his free hand.

This close, Peter can see the way his armor makes him seem broader than he was. This close, the gold can’t distract from the tired eyes and unhealthily blanched skin.

 _‘Oh,’_ Peter realizes. _‘He finally redid his nails. The paint isn’t chipped anymore.’_

“Thanks.” Peter says quietly.

“Don’t do it again.”

“I meant it, you know. When I said I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Then it will be your undoing. This,” Loki says, and leans in. His voice is icy, eyes vicious, but Peter’s frowning at what he can see of his arm. It looks bad. “was me showing mercy.”

The debris rises again. It won’t be long till they’re uncovered.

“You asked me why,” Peter says slowly, working through his thoughts. It's hard. He’s tired. “I don’t want you to get hurt, because you’re…you’re pretty okay. For a supervillain, that is.”

“I—” Loki’s expression twists in frustration, before he manages to seize it. “You,” he grits out. “are a terrible superhero.” Before Peter can respond, Loki gives him an abrupt, lazy grin.

“Catch,” He says, and drops the ceiling.

Peter yelps, arms jerking up (when had he dropped them) to catch the ceiling. He gasps as his head is forced down under the weight.

“I _do_ have a reputation to maintain.” Loki says, and in a flash of green light, he’s gone. He leaves blood behind. The ceiling lifts and peter blinks up into the searchlight shining from Tony’s suit. The hulk tosses the slab with a scowl.

“Hey, guys.” Peter says weakly, arms falling leaden to his sides. His vision spots. “Come here often?”

Tony makes a strangled growling noise.

**Author's Note:**

> The comments are honestly the reason why I'm so determined to finish this project, so please drop one if you enjoyed the fic! :D
> 
> (Hey, so there's something wrong with this series--part 4 is already out, but this fic won't link you to it for some reason. If you're interested in more, please check out the series on my profile :) )


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